In a small room, a dozen steps from the Oval Office, the First Lady’s fielding questions about her husband’s health, his lascivious ways and their impending divorce. She’s cool, calm and collected, most likely the result of patterning herself after Jackie Kennedy and Hilary Clinton. That means you should never be caught off guard by her charms because she’s knows every political angle.

At least that’s the way Bellamy Young’s playing First Lady Mellie Grant on the ABC drama “Scandal.” The series — that has the wickedness of both a daytime drama and a political thriller — has turned up the heat in the President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) administration with an attempted assassination, crooked political deals and the impending end of the Grant marriage. Kerry Washington plays the fixer who discovers politics sometimes makes for compatible bedfellows.

As to the possible separation, Young sounds like a typical politician as she prefers to talk about the positives of the pair’s life together.

“The have a great relationship. They are great partners. They function as a team so well,” Young says during an interview on the set of the series. A replica of the Oval Office and adjoining rooms fill the soundstage and create the illusion that the First Lady’s chat is going on in D.C. rather than L.A. “They’ve accomplished so much and they are a well oiled machine in terms of family and profession.”